The Little Airplane That Could
Jon Bruner 05.07.07
Poor Pan Am. The iconic American airline collapsed in 1991 under the =
pressures of deregulation and high oil prices, resurfacing a few =
years later only to fail again. And now? It's sort of a Thomas the =
Tank Engine.
The brand, once an American emblem to legions of foreign travelers, =
was bought in 1998 for $25 million by a small New England railroad =
company called Guilford Transportation, owned mostly by aviation =
enthusiast Timothy Mellon. The company started a largely on-demand =
new airline, again called Pan Am, that flies from airports on the =
fringes of big cities, like those in New Haven, Conn. and Trenton, =
N.J. But most recently Guilford has repainted 260 boxcars, which haul =
paper and chemicals, with Pan Am's familiar blue-and-white logo. The =
company's new name: Pan Am Systems.
Robert Culliford, the company's senior vice president, insists the =
brand, bankruptcies and all, still resonates, reminding shippers that =
the railroad can send their freight anywhere in the country. =
Customers "love the logo and the way it looks on the boxcars," he =
says. ("This is like slapping 'Pan Am' on your kid's toy wagon," =
harrumphs Gary Singer, chief strategy officer at branding consultancy =
Interbrand.)
Guilford is so pleased with the brand's appeal that by this fall it's =
rolling out a new line of flight bags and apparel emblazoned with the =
Pan Am logo. Among the items are reproductions of the classic Pan Am =
flight bag that John F. Kennedy carried when he traveled overseas. =
The brand's mystique got a kick in 2002 when the film Catch Me If You =
Can showed a svelte Leonardo DiCaprio posing as a Pan Am pilot, =
surrounded by beautiful women.
Trains and baggage may be just the beginning of the brand's =
resurrection. Roland Moore, an aviation attorney in Miami, has put a =
group of folks together to explore licensing the name for a new =
airline operating internationally. He's optimistic that Pan Am's name =
recognition overseas remains bankable.
"You could fly a Pan Am airplane into Frankfurt Airport, and people =
would say, 'Oh my God, Pan Am is back!' It would be like the glory =
days all over again," he says. I think I can, I think I can =85
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